


World Without End

by Accidentallytechohazardous



Category: Bleach
Genre: Coming Out, Demonic Possession, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Self-Acceptance, WKTD AU, wktd spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 22:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16105505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accidentallytechohazardous/pseuds/Accidentallytechohazardous
Summary: (An AU of Date Nighto's fantastic visual novel, We Know the Devil)It’s the last week of the Summer Scouts, a camp for bad kids learning how to fight the devil. It’s the last night for responsible Shuuhei, quiet Izuru, and hot-tempered Renji to go out and spend one night in the woods. To sort out their own feelings, talk to God, and hope that the devil won’t find them tonight.





	World Without End

**Author's Note:**

> An AU of Date Nighto’s We Know the Devil. If you haven’t played WKTD for yourself, you should definitely look into it. It’s a short, sweet visual novel with multiple endings that you can buy at steam for $8, I also recommend playing before you read this fic because there are just All Of The Spoilers Ahead.

The end of summer doesn’t let a lick of new fall squeeze through. It’s hot, stinking with swampy humidity and the forest sits still without a single breeze to push the air. The humming of mosquito wings is a constant background noise, interspersed by the sound of an occasional palm slapping against skin. The reek of the ancient wilderness is only interrupted by the overpowering perfume of incense and empty promises.

All of the Summer Scouts assembled are soaked through in equal parts sweat, sunscreen and bug spray. Each teenager has a seat on the rows of logs circling around the bonfire pit, watching the orange flames crumble into molten red. The Counselor sits on the other side of them through the flames and begins to punish his guitar with another atrocious attempt at installing the power of positive thinking into his audience.

Counselor Captain Kyoraku balances the guitar on his knee and rubs his beard with his hand, trying to wear the kind of calm expression that doesn’t betray how done he is with all of this. The counselors hate this place as much as the campers. “I’m glad you’re all so excited tonight. This summer with you guys has been, ah, it’s been a real treat. Hard to believe in a week you guys will will be going back to school.”

He ignores the series of dead stares that receives him. No one is particularly impressed. In the back he can see a certain distinct head bobbing and a severe whisper, “Not too late to run away with the circus.”

“I know a lot of you probably aren’t looking forwards to that. I was never exactly the best student, myself. Always goofing off. It’s good to appreciate youth while you still have it, you never get those opportunities back.” Kyoraku continues. “I thought I was having fun with my friends, slacking off and having a good time. But later I realized that what I thought was fun, they hated because I was always getting them in trouble. It’s about sacrifice– I had to give up a little of what I wanted to make my friends happy. If you aren’t willing to make sacrifices for what’s important to you then, well, I guess those things don’t really matter all that much, do they?”

Renji, Shuuhei and Izuru sit in the back. Izuru is curled up atop the log, folded into himself with his chest to his knees like he is trying to look as small as possible. The humidity catches in his hair, making his bangs hang heavy and stick to his forehead and in his eyes. No one in camp can look at him without thinking he looks like a fluffy little owl, all big, blue eyes and heavy gaze.

Renji, next to him, looks like he is trying to achieve the opposite effect, with his arms folded over his chest and sitting with his knees set widely apart. He has this grumpy, grim, unimpressed frown stretched over his features, a few strands of bright red hair escaping from it’s tight ponytail. If he is worried about one of the counselors scolding him for his attitude, Renji doesn’t betray it.

Shuuhei, on the far end, just has his ankle thrown over his knee, looking as laid-back and impassive as he ever does. That calm expression that the counselors instinctively trust, despite the spikey hair and the dark choker around his throat and the nasty, nasty scar on his face from a childhood accident he doesn’t like to talk about. While Kyoraku talks, Shuuhei absently draws the edge of his fingernail down the inside of one of his scars.

“This is killing me. Why do older people’s attempts at being ‘relatable’ just turn into stories about what assholes they were?” Renji grumbles just loud enough for the two on either side of him to hear.

Izuru giggles, but it might just be nervous. Shuuhei snorts, but gives Renji a reprimanding “Shoosh! It’s not like anyone else here wants to be here any more than we do.”

Emboldened by Renji and Shuuhei breaking the no-whispering rule, Izuru mutters lowly to himself. “I don’t think that’s true. We’re the ones going to cabin tonight, aren’t we?”

Shuuhei frowns. “Why d’you say that?” On his side, Renji breaks into a smirk.

“Well, now it’s just set in stone, right? Either we were already going to go to cabin, or Izuru just jinxed us, so now it’s 100% odds.”

“No! Well, it’s just obvious, isn’t it?” Izuru’s lower lips juts in a pout at Renji. His posture loosens, no longer holding himself so tight together. “It’s the last week of Scouts and we’re the only group that hasn’t gone yet. And I think the Captain lost his patience with us anyways, so it isn’t like he’s doing us any favors to get us out of it.”

“Dammit. I hate how much sense that makes.” Shuuhei squeezes his eyes shut, brows knit together. “Even if we end up going, that doesn’t mean anything is going to actually happen.”

“Hey, Group North.” Kyoraku looks up from his guitar. He points a mask of a smile at the three teens. “You three feel like meeting the Devil tonight?”

 

* * *

 

 

Everyone knows how to beat the Devil. They say it’s only as hard as trying. And if it’s harder than that, nobody can tell. As far as anyone needs to know, fighting the Devil is as easy as breathing, as pumping blood through your heart and listening to the crack of your bones.

North Group is back at their bunk, putting together their packs and clothes for the night. They will arrive at the cabin at 7 PM and then the night can begin in earnest.

Shuuhei is the one who gives them tasks to do. When nobody wants to do something, Shuuhei is the one who has to come up with a reason to do anything. Izuru makes sure their radios are tuned to the Camp’s frequency, rolling the copper wires through sprigs of garlen. His fingers work deftly, arranging pieces in his lap with his face pointing down at a 90 degree angle.

Izuru is not hard to read. As long as he’s been at camp, he’s stuck to Renji and Shuuhei like their shadow. Only eager to step into the spotlight if it’s something that he knows he is good at, like cat’s cradle or fixing charms. If it’s anything else he doesn’t want to even try. Though he’ll more than happily watch someone else fail.

Sitting cross-legged on his cot, Renji charges the flashlights. It’s not even dark out yet, but they have to last until morning. His eyes keep flickering like a trick of the heat, going from the wall, to Izuru, to Shuuhei, to the door, and around again.

Finally, he breaks the silence and asks, “You really think the Captain has a problem with us, don’t you?”

Izuru starts, fumbles with diodes in his lap and blushes. Unlike Renji, he doesn’t like being called out for misbehaving or doing anything wrong ever. “I mean. I kinda suspected. You’re the one who is always talking about how Bonfire Captain and the other groups hate our guts and stuff.”

“Oh, I know. I was just surprised that you noticed. You’re way too nice to say stuff like that aloud.” Renji squeezes his eyes shut and frowns impetuously. “God, I don’t wanna do this. Can’t we just ditch and stay here tonight? It’s not like it would bother anyone else, this is just a weird way for them to. Build our character or some bullshit like that.”

“We’re going.” Shuuhei says with a beleaguered finality in his voice. His job was to lock the doors and windows so nothing could get in the night they were away. Shuuhei is second to Izuru at gadgets, and first at protection sigils. “The Captain might check on us tonight. And even if he doesn’t and nobody comes by, then a certain somebody will still know.”

“Yeah, I know. I know. Just wishful thinking.” Renji sets three flashlights in front of him and gestures with a sweep of his hand. “These are done, by the way.”

Izuru doesn’t look entirely satisfied, his brows knit together under his soft bangs. He crosses his arms and holds himself at the elbow. “Huh. I guess it makes sense that the Captain and all the other groups hate us. We’re always the last ones to show up, and I tend to mess up a lot and make more work for everyone else…”

“I don’t think it’s that.” Shuuhei corrects. The three of them have their bags packed by the door. Shuuhei puts away his charm kit in his pocket until they need it later tonight. “It’s not like we’re going out of our way to be best friends with everybody either. Everyone is just frustrated and mad because none of them want to be here, but there’s nobody responsible around to take it out on. So instead, we take it out by being mad at each other. It’s the same reason Renji is such a bitch all the time.”

Renji gives a deep shrug. “‘S true.”

“Shuuhei, that’s… surprisingly a nice way to think about it.” Izuru looks up at him. “You really think we’d get along better with everybody if we weren’t here?”

Wouldn’t they all like to know. Before he can answer with certainty one way or the other, a seed of doubt drops in Shuuhei’s stomach. He scratches his cheek for something to do, and finds it hard to look Izuru in the eye. “I dunno, that’s not what I said. Maybe?”

“Shuuhei’s right.” Renji throws in, the confidence in his voice compensating for the earlier waffling. “I mean, we’re a part of the problem by always goofing off and fucking up, we’re not impressing any of the others. But why should we? Just to make it easier for everyone else? All the counselors are like ‘get along, work together’, but there’s a fine line between teamwork and being a doormat.”

No one really has a response to that. Shuuhei’s tongue feels heavy in his mouth, up until Renji gives him an expected look. “Are we ready?”

“Oh. Yeah. We can go now.”

Renji sighs and stands up, then proceeds to stretch out his back like a cat. “Good. Let’s just get this night over with. Izuru?”

Both Renji and Shuuhei look at the blond, the shiny pieces of metal still contained in his lap like broken toys. Izuru puts away the bits of his radio and begins to brush himself off. “Yeah. It’s interesting.”

“What?”

“You guys are much more sympathetic to the others than I was expecting.” Izuru smiles earnestly, or at least what he perhaps thinks is earnest. “I don’t know if I would give them that much credit.”

Shuuhei makes a quiet “Hmm.” While Renji is already at the door, slinging his backpack onto his shoulders. “Well, I’ve been wrong before. Let’s just get going already. Maybe if we’re lucky we will die horribly in the woods.”

“Please don’t raise my expectations.”

 

* * *

 

The cabin as the end of the trail, where the woods are darkest and the fireflies are the brightest. They flicker in and out of the inky shadows like a piece of outer space anchored down and locked away in this lonely forest.

It is 7 PM. The sun is just beginning to go down. All three kids have their flashlights out and on, just in case.

“Wow. Our chances of dying in the woods for real were higher than I thought.”

The cabin itself is a run-down, pathetic shell of a building. It leans like a leper, with open gaps in the woodwork like bleeding sores. It has electricity, amazingly and illegally. Nobody has died yet, but there’s a betting pool on whether the cabin will eventually claim it’s first kill via collapsing and electrocution.

There’s a small shed that looks like it was sewn on to the main building via Frankenstein-surgery. Other than that, it looks like an ordinary abandoned building. Even the trail of lights that wind through the rest of the campgrounds have stopped like this entire area is forgotten to the wilderness.

“This… is seriously only as old as the rest of the buildings on campgrounds?” Izuru’s flashlight beam rolls over the walls critically. “Actually, this doesn’t even look old. It just looks really bad.”

Renji is the one who tentatively approaches first. He reaches out his hand and slides the tips of his fingers against the naked wood sliding. A shower of woodchips falls under his touch. “Summer Scouts wasn’t formed that long ago, right? I can’t believe somebody built a cabin this shitty and thought ‘this is totally okay!’ How much do you wanna bet the Bonfire Captain made it?”

“No, he’d probably never put in the effort to even attempt to make this.” The corner of Shuuhei’s mouth curls up at the edge, even while his flashlight beam coasts over the patchy roof and exposed wiring. “He probably made the other counselors build it as, like, a ‘team-building activity’, and they super half-assed it because of course.”

“Normally, we’d just be worried about if there are dangerous animals in this area.” Izuru mutters, almost to himself. “But I guess a bear busting through the door is the least of our concerns.”

“Um.” Shuuhei thinks for a moment, frowning. “I’ve never actually even seen a bear before in real life. I don’t even know if they make a noise or something you’ve got to look out for.”

“You’ve never seen a bear? Not even at the zoo?”

Shuuhei blushes slightly in the dusk, looking embarrassed. It’s unusual to see him flustered over something so little. “I didn’t like the zoo as a little kid. It was too noisy and scary.”

“Wow.”

Renji, by the door, speaks in a tone that is louder and madder for the other two to hear. “Hey, the piece of shit door is jammed. Should I kick it down?”

Izuru swings his flashlight to Renji, who immediately curses and blocks the light from his face with his hands. “Dammit, Izuru.” “Shuuhei has never seen a bear before.”

“Don’t say it like it’s a deficit or something!”

“Super interesting. Ugh. Izuru. The light. My eyes. I’d sure love it if I wasn’t blind.” Renji complains until Izuru sheepishly turns off the flashlight. (“Sorry!”) “Anyway, I’ve never seen a bear either. You have?”

“Yeah, I mean.” Izuru rubs his cheek absently. “Just at the zoo with my mom. Black and brown bears live in the wild in Japan, so you need to watch out for them.”

He smiles in a way that’s clearly more nervous than anything else. “Knowing that doesn’t do us a lot of good though, huh? I don’t think they make a noise you can hear from far away, they just, like… rustle and grunt and growl when they’re angry I think?”

“Just like Shuuhei when he’s sleeping.” Renji observes, and Shuuhei slaps him on the arm.

“Well, like you said, bears are probably the last thing we have to worry about.” Shuuhei says. “Let’s get the door figured out first. If the Captain comes by, he's gonna give us Hell if we're not even inside yet.”

Izuru and Shuuhei stand to watch as Renji pushes the full weight of his body against the door. It shudders and moans on its hinges, threatening to snap like dry sticks. Renji tries to place his body against it carefully, more worried about it collapsing and dropping him to the floor than anything else.

“I think it’s locked from the inside.” He pushes against the door clasp and makes an obvious grunt of displeasure. The rust metal squeals and shrieks in displeasure. “I’m not even sure how that’s possible. What idiot managed to lock it behind them as they were leaving?”

“I think Group East was here last?” Izuru says with less than a 100% certainty.

“Just like those idiots to mess up and leave us to take the fall. Should we go through the window?”

“The way this place is built, I doubt that the windows will open unless we break it. Having a bunch of glass on the floor is just asking for more trouble.” Shuuhei looks grim, like he thinks a leader should be. “We don’t have a choice. We’ll just have to break the lock and explain the situation tomorrow.”

“We’re so gonna get chewed out for this…” Renji puts his foot against the door’s opening and gives it a solid, strong kick.

“I’ll say it’s my fault. Easier to ask forgiveness than permission, right?”

Finally, with concerning ease the door flies open and bounces off the wall. The threshold opens up to a sad, barren interior– peeling wood-polish curling down the walls, ivy and moss crawling through the rotting planks. There’s a small door to the miniscule bathroom, and one ceiling light to provide a dim glow.

“Jesus. Sorry I looked.”

Renji and Shuuhei begin to swarm the doorway, stopping only when they realize they’ve lost their third. Renji looks over his shoulder to see Izuru still standing a few feet away from the cabin. His eyes look distant. The spot of light from his flashlight jitters anxiously across the ground as his hands tremble.

“Izuru?” Renji asks first, but there’s no immediate response from the blond. “IZURU.”

Blue eyes snap to attention. Izuru looks at his friends. “Huh?”

“Come inside already, okay? You’re safer in here than you are out there.”

“Yeah.” Shuuhei adds, and tries for a smile that is reassuring and not fake. “It’s okay to be scared, but we’ll be careful too.”

A look of confusion and embarrassment passes over Izuru’s face. “Scared? I’m not scared! And I’m not a little kid, Shuuhei.”

“Your hands are shaking.”

“My-” Izuru looks down at his hands, seems to notice for the first time the way that they tremble even when he stands completely still. He clenches his shaking hand into a fist, willing the muscles, bones and blood in him to behave. “I must have caught a chill or something.”

“It’s hotter than Hell out here.” Renji points out. But Izuru shakes his head and grabs tightly to the straps of his backpack.

“Let’s go inside– like Shuuhei said, better to get this over with, right?”

So they do.

 

* * *

 

Three backpacks are set on the floor. Three sleeping bags are unrolled. Renji has attempted to fix the lock he just broke, cleaning out the shattered diode fragments and twisting together the remnants of the charm. Shuuhei and Izuru draw out their sigils on the wall, runes of protection. Pleading. Asking for forgiveness and salvation.

Once they’re done, there’s very little else for them to do. They just sit down on their sleeping bags, their radios arranged in a circle between them.

The counselors recommend that they sleep in shifts, but no one told them exactly how to do that. No one feels particularly tired right now, so they all unanimously decide to stay up the whole night together.

“So, what do we want to do now?” Shuuhei looks between the other two boys. Once the assigned tasks are completed, there’s no other rules for what they can or can’t do.

Renji shrugs. “Did anyone bring a deck of cards or something?”

The silence between the three confirms that nobody did. Izuru nervously shuffles around the contents of his backpack. “There are games we can play without cards, too.”

“What game can you play with only three people?” Renji grumbles and folds his arms. “Other than games for little kids?”

Shuuhei’s expression lightens, a smile pulling at his lips. “I spy with my little eye something red and crabby.”

“No.”

“Hmm. A crab.” Izuru suggests.

“It’s not a crab.”

“Then I’m stumped.”

Renji rolls his eyes and slums backwards on his sleeping bag until he’s lying flat on his back. “I really wish we had cards or something. At least then I wouldn’t be bored whipping Izuru’s butt at poker all night.”

“The phrase ‘at poker’ was really the game-changer in that sentence.” Shuuhei observes with a snide expression, and is pointedly ignored.

“There wouldn’t be a point at the three of us playing anyways. Shuuhei would win because he has the best poker face.” Izuru points out, gesturing towards Shuuhei with a sense of professional deduction.

Shuuhei’s brows rise, suddenly surprised. “Oh?”

“You’re kind of hard to read, senpai. It’s like…”

“Oh, yeah.” Renji sits back up to concur. “Kind of a resting bitch face, you know?”

“You aren’t supposed to say it like that.”

“I don’t have a resting bitch face.” Shuuhei frowns, he draws his nail down his scar once more. “Do I?”

“Well, it’s more like you’re kind of mysterious.” Renji amends, leaning back on one hand and looking thoughtful. “You never tell us what you’re really thinking, but you also don’t show it on your face so it’s really hard to guess.”

“I guess I never noticed that.”

Izuru looks apologetic, eyes flickering to the floor. “It’s not a bad thing, necessarily. It’s just as Renji said, you’re just hard to figure out sometimes.”

“This is just how my face is…” Shuuhei sounds put out. His lips twist in a sulky expression, huffing under his shaggy, black bangs.

Renji grins smugly, inordinately entertained by Shuuhei’s confusion. “We should stop talking about this before you get too in your own head and hurt yourself. It’s fine that you don’t emote too much, if you were super expressive like Izuru and me then it would just be unsettling.”

If that was meant to be anything other than a compliment, Izuru doesn’t appear to register it. He knows some other campers call him creepy behind his back, and he doesn’t mind all that much. He just glows and smiles. “That’s true. Shuuhei is fine the way he is.”

Shuuhei’s face darkens even further, looking down and holding his hand in front of his face as if to block himself with view. “Alright, now you guys are just making me feel even weirder when you’re praising me. Cut it out.”

Shuuhei is the eldest of the trio. Not by much, but he always acts older. More mature and responsible. But as he is now, he looks young. No one will admit how nice it is to see him that way. “Anyways, shouldn’t we go do patrols soon?”

The light mood dissipates as soon as he says those words. Crickets outside scream over the blanket of silence falling over the three boys. No one wants to leave, and no one wants to say no one wants to leave. Not with what could be out there, the devil is somewhere. Hiding. Waiting.

“Yeah,” Renji says, sounding less than his usually confident self. His tongue runs over the inside of his teeth. “I guess we ought to.”

“We can’t all leave our stuff here with the lock broken.” Izuru points out, gesturing to the shattered diode and Renji’s failed attempts at reconstructing the charm. “Someone will have to stay here to keep an eye on the cabin while the others go.”

Two must leave. One must stay. Shuuhei feels a dry lump form in his throat. “No. Let’s just stay here.”

The other two look at him in obvious confusion. “But you just said-”

He is wearing that expression again, the one that is hard to decipher. The poker face. “I know! But… with things the way they are, it’s better if we stay together, right? We shouldn’t complicate things unnecessarily by splitting up.”

Renji stands up. “I’ll go.” He looks pale. Izuru suppresses a shudder up his spine. Shuuhei’s face looks grave.

“I just said-”

“Yeah, well!” Renji picks up his flashlight in one hand and his radio in the other, feeling that solid, sick weight in his palm with that long, sharp edge at the end. “Someone has to. It’s not a big deal, you and Izuru stay here and watch our stuff and I’ll be right back. Don’t worry about it.”

At that moment, the cabin is reached by a distant wail. A sound like metal on metal. Like anger and wrath. Like the hell and the high water.

“Here come the sirens.” Izuru says, lifting his hands to cover his ears. “Are they– louder than usual? Oh, God.”

It fills the air like static, an indeterminable harsh noise of garbled radio garbage. Shuuhei flinches at the deafening sound, Renji squeezes his eyes shut and covers his ears as well to soften the enormous noise.

It is the sound of the horns that brought down Jericho. It’s the noise of the nymphs ripping apart Orpheus. It’s the crackling and the burning and the snapping and the crashing and the blight, terrible blight.

God has spoken. Two must leave. One must stay.

Izuru has to strain to speak up above the din, working his soft and tender voice in a way he usually tries his hardest to avoid. “I’ll go with Renji.” The sirens soften.

“It will be fine.”

 

* * *

 

The rules of the Summer Scouts are so simple, even the rowdy and unruly campers can be expected to comply; stay on the trail. Don’t go out alone after dark. Don’t let the Devil into your hearts.

It’s finally pitch black outside, with the fireflies as the strongest source of natural light. The trail of lights leading back to camp are a little too distant, a little too fuzzy, they look like lightning bugs themselves threatening to blink out between the strips of trees. Even the moon and the stars are blotted out. Renji and Izuru’s flashlight beams coast over the mossy trail.

“You think Shuuhei is okay that we left him by himself?” Izuru asks, swatting a mosquito on his elbow. Even though he’s the smallest and skinniest of the bunch, he’s ended up all summer with red welts on his thin arms and legs. “I know he was the one that wanted to stay, but… leaving him behind feels weird. He seemed kind of freaked out, even.”

Renji gives the trail a good sweep back and forth with his flashlight, as if he knew what he was looking for. The patrols are just a courtesy more than anything else. No one has actually found anything suspicious on them. At least, no one has said they found anything. “You know Shuuhei. I think he likes being left alone sometimes. The two of us probably just hold him back.”

It’s not a funny thought, but Izuru giggles besides himself. “That’s true. You and I are always getting in trouble, Shuuhei is pretty popular by comparison. I have to wonder why he doesn’t get sick of us.”

“I’m sure he does sometimes.” Renji shrugs, smiling even though he doesn’t know why. Izuru’s giggling is infectious. “He’s the smartest kid in the Scouts, he’s good at sports, and he never lets anyone see when something bothers him. He can’t help being perfect, that’s why he needs screw-ups like us to keep him grounded.”

“Yeah…” Izuru often finds himself agreeing with whatever Renji says before he even thinks about it. The redhead just speaks with so much conviction, it’s hard not to get caught up in that heat. “It must be exhausting for him, though. Everyone having such high expectations. I’m sure he gets lonely.”

“How can he be lonely? This exact moment is probably the first time any of us have been alone for more than five minutes since we got to this camp.”

“You can be lonely without being alone.” Izuru says succinctly. His eyeline falls onto a rotting tree stump, flashlight pointed at his feet, completely forgetting what he was out here to do. “You know that feeling, right? Where you’re in a room full of people or something, but for some reason you can’t say anything to any of them?”

Renji looks at Izuru. He thinks about how his round cheeks and blue eyes look beautiful in the purple darkness like this, and turns the thought away in his mind like turning over a stone. “Yeah. And even if you force yourself to have a conversation, it feels like you’re speaking two completely different languages. Like, everyone else can connect and have fun, but for some reason you’re the disconnect.”

Izuru hums. “I think even Shuuhei must feel that way.”

“Yeah, probably a lot.”

“Renji,” Izuru looks back up. The broad shape of Renji’s shoulders is a reassuring shape in the vast darkness, the most solid tree in the entire woods.

“Hmm?”

“Do you think the Devil is going to come tonight?”

Renji is quiet. Izuru can just barely see the furrowing if his dark eyebrows, the bunny-scrunching of his nose as he tries to think of what to say. “No. We might not be good kids, but even we’re not that bad. Being paranoid over nothing is what He wants, right? It’s just a mind-trick.”

Again, Izuru wants very much to believe anything Renji says and he smiles softly. “You’re right. Let’s finish up here and go back to Shuuhei.”

“Mind trick. Mind Trick.”

Izuru feels his spine seize, that cold shiver in his arms and his legs. Izuru turns to face Renji again and points his flashlight at Renji’s sneakers. “What?”

Renji stares back, his dark brown eyes melding into the night. “What what?”

“Why did you say that twice?” Izuru asks slowly, “You said ‘Mind trick’ three times.”

A look of confusion on Renji’s face, bordering on anger. “No, I didn’t.”

Izuru is about to argue. To press. It was certainly Renji’s voice. It was certainly from his mouth. It was certainly the same two words repeated three distinct times.

But he doesn’t argue. “Sorry.” It’s easier for all of them this way. “Should we head back now?”

 

* * *

 

It’s 12 AM now. It’s the crux between the night and the dawn. Five hours ago they started this journey, and in five hours it will be done. But it’s also still early. A lot could happen.

“I guess we’re back to thinking of what games we can play without cards.” Shuuhei suggests. “We need to do something before we all go stir-crazy in here. What do normal kids do at sleepovers?”

Izuru hesitantly pulls his backpack into his lap, cradling it between his knees. “Truth-or-dare?”

But Renji is quick to correct that error before the idea goes too far. “A game for girls.”

Shuuhei gives Renji a pointed look. “I don’t suppose you have a better idea.”

“Well, uh,” Izuru shuffles around in his backpack, and his face begins to go pink.

“No, but anything is better than ‘who do you like?’ or ‘Who was your first kiss?’, and that’s all those games really are. It’s so gross and immature!”

“Guys, I–” Izuru’s face is red as a rose and he accidentally jostles the contents of the bag, and there’s the sudden ringing of glass paired with the sloshing of liquid. Suddenly, Shuuhei and Renji’s attention is captivated.

“What was that?” Shuuhei squints at Izuru suspiciously. Izuru’s eyes are the size of dinner plates, he seems to melt underneath Shuuhei’s scrutiny.

“I-I-I-I Uh… well, since we’re here all night… Um. Uh. I thought, maybe–”

He’s interrupted by Renji reaching over and sinking his arm into the depths of Izuru’s backpack. “Yoink!”

When Renji pulls back his hand, there’s the neck of a long, narrow bottle clutched in his fist. The label is peeing off the edge, the very glass itself reeks of alcohol, sugar, and sharpie markers. Renji’s eyes widen and his expression lights up like he’s got a fistful of treasure in his hand. “Holy Shit!” Renji appraises Izuru with a blinding, mischievous grin. “Izuru! You hellion!”

Izuru twists his fingers in his hand and looks over at Shuuhei, like he expects Mr. Responsible to tell him off. But the older boy just looks bemused, ogling Izuru with the same shock as Renji. “Where did you even get that here?”

“I, Uh.” Izuru seems awfully confused by this positive encouragement from both sides, he’s not sure whether to be ashamed or proud. His mom would definitely not approve of this right now, this is so illegal. “I traded for it with Group Northeast. I figured, y’know, Scouts is almost over and we haven’t really done anything fun all summer… people always say that drinking alcohol unwinds you, so I thought…”

He gestures weakly at the bottle Renji had pilfered. Renji pops open the cork with his teeth and takes a curious sniff in the contents. “I’m pretty sure this won’t kill us.”

“This is perfect.” Shuuhei’s smile is a thin, white line. The point where the responsible honor student and the rebellious teen punk are separated starts to swim and blur. “We can play never-have-I-ever.”

Renji groans, giving the edge of the bottle an experimental lick and trying to look like it doesn’t immediately befoul his taste buds. “I already told you, I don’t wanna play boring truth-or-dare.”

“This one is different. Haven’t you guys ever played never-have-I-ever.”

Izuru gives Shuuhei his rapt attention, excited that his misbehavior can attribute to one of Shuuhei’s ideas. “What are the rules?”

“Okay, so the way it goes,” Shuuhei reaches over and yanks the bottle from Renji’s hands. The contents inside slap and swirl against the glass ominously. “The person who starts says something that they’ve never done before. Usually something embarrassing or illegal. Anyone who has done that thing has to take a drink.”

“So drinking is the punishment, but how do you win a game like that?” Izuru’s lips purse.

Renji drops down onto his sleeping bag, giving Shuuhei a sulking glare. “Shuuhei wins when we get stupid wasted because he’s done more shit than we have and rubs our noses in it.”

“Don’t be such a baby, Abarai.” Shuuhei shakes the bottle by it’s body at the redhead with a grin. “I’m sure you can handle some cliche teen mischief. Kids are gonna be playing dumb games like this all the time in college, so you’ll just have to quit being a wet blanket and get ready to lose like a man.”

Renji’s expression hardens, his cheeks reddening like apples. “Fine.” His dark eyes drink in a quick scan of the room, finally ending with him pointing an assertive finger at Izuru. “Izuru goes first.”

“Oh, me?” Izuru goes white as a sheet, once again under the eyes of the two other kids.

“You did bring the bottle. It’s only fair.”

Izuru licks his dry lips, putting his finger to his temple like that will help him think better. He’s sure there are plenty of things he could say that might get Shuuhei or Renji to drink, but might also get them very, very mad at him. More so than usual. “Never have I… hmm… never have I ever kissed a girl.”

The look that Renji gives Izuru is scathingly unimpressed. “Izuru, yer supposed to try and embarrass the other people playing the game. Not yourself.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s that embarrassing!” Izuru tries to defend himself. “And I thought the point was just to try and get everyone else to drink, so…”

Shuuhei lifts the bottle up without much ceremony from the other two. “Bottom’s up.” Before taking a swig. Practically as soon as he’s taken his first sip, Shuuhei’s lips peel back in a grimace and bearing his teeth. “God, that’s awful.” Renji slow-claps sardonically.

When Renji doesn’t move to take the bottle back from Shuuhei, Izuru scoots over and looks at him quizzically. “You’ve never kissed anyone either, Renji?”

“Um?” Renji baulks, his shoulders stiffening and tightening together like a bristled cat. “No. But– I mean, we just established that you haven’t either. So. We’re the majority?”

Shuuhei grins thinly at the two younger boys. “You guys are adorable.”

“Shuuhei.” Izuru asserts himself over the sound of Renji’s indignant stammering. He leans in on his knees to blink at Shuuhei with owlish curiosity. “What is kissing really like?”

“Oh? What it’s really like? Hmm.” Shuuhei shrugs, twisting his lips. “It’s not really… something you think about. I think it’s actually better when you don’t think about it while you do it actually. It’s just easier that way, to enjoy the ride and not worry about details.”

Izuru tries to consider that. Kissing without thinking, really doing anything without thinking, seems a rough task to contend with. He tries to imagine Shuuhei’s first kiss with a girl, Shuuhei who is much cooler and more mature and probably didn’t freak out at all about being so close to another human being.

With a hard realization, Izuru realizes he wants to know for himself. At least to try. “Can you show what it’s like?”

On his side, just barely out of eyeline, Izuru hears Renji make a squawk like a strangled chicken. “Izuru!” But not even the fact that Renji’s face is turning as red as his hair is enough to make Izuru check his level of appropriateness at this time.

Shuuhei’s brows shoot up under his shaggy, dark bangs. “Hmm.” He looks around the room, over Renji, as he thinks. His one bad eye is a little slower than his other, looking glassy and distant at moments. His voice is so casual and even that it is chilling. “Yeah, I guess.”

“What?”

The older boy puts down the bottle and sits up on his knees. “First you need to come here so you’re facing me.”

Izuru does comply, scooting up so he is mirroring Shuuhei’s position. His heart hammers against his chest, but for some reason it’s not as scary as he feared it would be. He feels like he should be more worried, about if the counselors find out, or the other Scouts. He should be petrified that Shuuhei’s mouth will suddenly split into a mean slash of a smile and say ‘Gotcha’ like tricking Izuru was another fun game for everyone to enjoy.

But when Shuuhei does that cool little half-smile of his, it isn’t mean, and Izuru isn’t sure why he was worried in the first place. A warm hand touches Izuru’s face, Shuuhei’s palm on his cheek. Shuuhei looks at Renji and smiles with a cool, unshakeable confidence. “Why’re you so freaked? Izuru is a growing boy; he wants some practice. Lots of guys do it this way, you know.”

“I know that!” Renji scoffs. He looks so strangely serious, though frankly Renji is often making a serious expression. Taking things seriously when he doesn’t need to. It’s exhausting. “There wouldn’t be an issue if you guys were actually interested in each other. Not because Izuru is just curious about making out.”

Ah, right. This is just for curiosity. Playing pretend, nothing serious about it.

Shuuhei puts his hand on Izuru’s knee, and the blond feels very small underneath him but also very solid. “I touch you like this.”

Izuru’s face looks heavy with anticipation, it makes Shuuhei excited. He’s not sure he can remember the last time someone was so eager to have his attention, but Izuru is always like that. He has hungry eyes and hungry hands. “Then we both lean in, open your mouth like that…”

It’s not graceful, it’s not even romantic with the cabin slowly decaying around them and Renji ogling from his seat. But it’s a perfectly serviceable first kiss, Izuru feels like he’s being softly electrocuted when Shuuhei’s lips glance over his. “Oh!”

Even Shuuhei looks a little more amped up than he expected to be. His dark skin glows a ruddy pink on his cheeks. His hand on Izuru’s leg is hot. “And that’s that.”

“Now Renji is the only person here who hasn’t kissed someone.” Izuru observes, and both boys turn to look to the redhead.

Renji swallows and tries not to take that as personal. Izuru is rarely ever mean on purpose, it just kind of slips out of him. It isn’t his fault that Renji is a dick, and that finding someone that wants to kiss his scowly, greasy, pubescent face is like finding the open-minded needle in the haystack of much more attractive and likeable hay.

Izuru and Shuuhei look good together like that, kissing and touching. They’re the kind of beautiful boys that remind Renji how big and awkward he is, plus they’re actually nice and cool and Renji knows he doesn’t appreciate enough that they let him mope around after them.

Izuru’s hair looks so soft, it calls like feathers into his eyes as the smallest boy scoots over to sit in front of Renji now. This invisible claw seems to seize around Renji’s throat but he bites that feeling down. Izuru blinks and leans in urgently. “Can I?”

“Y-yeah.”

Renji parts his lips and Izuru tries to do the same thing Shuuhei just did, mouth over mouth, lip over lip. They’re not good at it at all, but none of them know any better, so it’s wonderful.

When they break, Shuuhei also crawls forwards on his hands and knees. He doesn’t like the idea of Izuru and Renji knowing something that he doesn’t. “My turn.”

Turns. Right. This is a game. It doesn’t mean anything. It could be three boys kissing in the dark in the woods. It could be three faceless, nameless, shapeless shadows. It could be nothing at all.

Shuuhei kissing Izuru. Izuru kissing Renji. Renji kissing Shuuhei. It’s a perfect circle. It’s the curve of the face of a clock in a space where time doesn’t exist. Nothing touches or can be seen or felt or heard. This is a game. There are no points. They’re just playing until the Sun comes up, that’s all.

Renji’s eyes are closed, immersed in the shape of Shuuhei’s mouth, until he feels something wet splash his cheek. Is Shuuhei crying?

Brown eyes open. Ice runs through Renji’s veins. “S-senpai… your face…”

Shuuhei blinks, gray eyes open and swimming with confusion. He puts his hand to his eye, the bad one, and feels a rawness that he knows shouldn’t be there. He looks at his fingers and the red, red blood dribbling through them from the broken skin of his scars. A wound that has been closed for years, now weeping openly like a fresh and screaming cut.

Izuru hops to his feet, and the hammering of his heart has nothing to do with kissing anymore. “I have the first-aid kid. Renji, please get some towels from the bathroom!”

“I’m fine.” Shuuhei says, and stares at the blood dripping down from his chin onto his white button-up shirt. “This is nothing.” It’s a game. Just a game. No one gets hurt if it’s pretend. It isn’t real, not kisses or blood or anything between.

 

* * *

 

They manage to coerce Shuuhei into the bathroom, sitting on the linoleum floor that has weeds growing through the tiles. Izuru collects damp cotton balls stained with pink in the sink until he feels confident enough to tape a bandage over the part of Shuuhei’s scar that split open.

“It must be from when you kept scratching it.” Izuru tells himself. Because that’s it. It’s nothing else. “Just keep this on.”

“It doesn’t hurt.” Shuuhei says, even though no one asked him if it did.

Renji, who had been playing nurse for Dr. Kira, brings Shuuhei a clean shirt for him to change into. Shuuhei wonders if it particularly matters, since all of their clothes are identical (Black dress pants. White dress shirt. Black cross stitched on the breast pocket. Absolutely abysmal fashion for summer wilderness activities) but he peels off his bloodied shirt.

“This isn’t what you think.” Shuuhei grunts as he slips the clean shirt over his shoulders.

Izuru seals the first-aid kit and tries not to look directly at the fresh bandage on Shuuhei’s face, or make eye-contact with the wound oozing underneath. “What do you mean?”

“You guys.” Shuuhei’s eye swivels between Izuru and Renji with something hard in the gray depths. Accusatory. “You think this means that the Devil is coming, but it isn’t. It was just a coincidence.”

A shadow of guilt passes over both teens, weighing heavily over the room. Renji clears his throat, sweeping away the thoughts he knows he can’t say. “Yeah, it’s nothing.”

“It’s nothing.”

Izuru’s fingers are held over his lips, tight like a lock. Shuuhei’s arms are folded over his legs, curling in on his body defensively as his glare sears into the blond’s eyes. “What?”

“Um. Well, there’s a way for us to know for sure that he isn’t coming.” Izuru squirms on his knees on the bathroom towel. His fingers begin to shake and tremble, he stifles the motion by interlocking them tightly. “We could ask God.”

Renji scoffs, lightly kicking the exposed sink pipes jutting out of the crumbling wall. “Right.”

“Really! It’s not that hard. All we need is some extra copper wire to connect the radios.” Izuru presses. On his knees with his hands folded, he looks like he’s in prayer. An angel, though the shaking is beginning to travel up his arms “There should be some in the supply shed…”

“Then we should look.” Shuuhei pulls his feet under his body, staggering stiffly onto his feet with his hand braced against the rusty toilet tank. “I’m sick of not knowing. Let’s just get it over with already!”

That leaves two against one. Izuru looks over with his big, bluebird eyes. “Renji? What do you think?”

Renji stands like a shadowman in the doorway, haunting the threshold. Doesn’t he want to know? No, of course not. As agonizing as it is to never be certain, it couldn’t possibly be as bad as the answer that he knows is true.

Renji’s vocal chords clench without his consent, the muscles in his throat tightening. “What do you think?”

Shame flickers hotly under Renji’s skin. The looks that Izuru and Shuuhei pierce him with are full of fear and worry and despair. “Renji, calm down.”

“Renji, calm down.” He can’t stop, it’s a force that starts in his stomach that travels up into his mouth to rattle against his teeth. “Calm down. Calm down. Calm down. Down. Down. Down. Down. Down. Down. Down. Down. Down. Down. Down. Down. Down. Down. Down. Down. Down-”

Shuuhei has his hands on Renji’s shoulder, squeezing him and shaking until Renji can feel himself move and claps his hands over his mouth.

The moment palms close over Renji’s lips, whatever compulsion that moved Renji’s voice stops instantly. Not even a whisper or a murmur tries to rumble up his throat, until the beat of silence passes and they all wait in anticipation. Izuru feels every muscle in his body tense like a cat about to spring into the air. “Renji?”

“I’m okay.” Renji lowers his hands from his face. There is no way to avoid the question now. “Let’s get this over with.”

 

* * *

 

The three of them set their radios in a circle, all of them strung together with copper wire. It reminds them of display skeletons they’ve seen in biology classrooms with the bones strung together with wire to keep them together. A collection of powerless objects desperately trying together to be a sum that is greater than their parts.

Only this circle of radios is perhaps more like a nervous system, passing electricity and energy into each other and it searches. And from the speakers bleed an ocean of static. Shuuhei, Izuru, and Renji hold hands and close their eyes, trying to open that third eye and find the thing that wants to be found. To hear the song that the heralds sung.

Izuru cracks one eye open, and it rolls around the room. The corners of his lips turn up, smiling nervously. “Does this feel weird to you guys?”

“What? Tuning in on God? Yeah.”

“No, I mean,” Izuru sighs from his chest. His hands feel sweaty holding Shuuhei and Renji’s hands. Despite everything, the taste of kisses is still on his lips. “Whenever we do this at camp, we always pray or sing or something. I always kind of hated it when we did it as a group, but sitting here in silence is just kinda silly somehow.”

Renji half-smirks from his corner of the triangle. “Yeah, but I stunk at singing. Shuuhei was always the favorite in music activities though, right? You always got picked by the counselors to lead the choir and sing-a-long.”

“Ugh. Don’t remind me. Singing in public is the worst.” Shuuhei groans and rolls his eyes. “Just focus, you two.”

In spite of all the pomp and circumstance around it, tuning to God’s station is notoriously easy. He doesn’t hide, He expects rapt attention. He expects you to always be listening The radio picks up his signal with a brief crackle of static and then a booming, brave voice.

“–their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death. Ephesians 4:26 In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”

God’s voice is deep and melodious; it should be soothing. But instead, the constant talking and tone just makes him sound droning, haughty. Shuuhei, Renji, and Izuru all flashback to various pompous teachers, know-it-all-classmates and boring dates. All of them exchange wary glances in the circle. God sounds like every boy you are afraid of talking all at once.

“–For wrath is the venom that travels by the mouth of the fowl snake into the blood of man. Humans, God’s sacred children, resist the poison that taints and decays the flesh, the devil’s mark will curse the body for eternity. The meaning of this parable–

There is no choosing between the three of you. No running or hiding. It is certain that the Devil is already here.”

The hot, humid air instantly becomes too cold and too heavy to bear. A great, pressing weight closing in on all the bespoken three. Shuuhei is uncharacteristically pale, the blood drained from his body. Izuru’s hands tremble, even clutched between Renji and Shuuhei, so hard that he fears that he might shake himself to pieces. Renji is frozen, the solid lump in his throat like a heart that has stopped beating, until he hears his own voice repeating back;

“It is certain that the Devil is already here.”

“The weather tomorrow will be highs of 98, with 100% chance of precipitation. Traffic–”

Shuuhei lets go of Renji’s hand to switch off the radio’s knob, and God’s voice disassembles into static. Soon it’s just the white noise and electric bees buzzing. “That’s enough.”

Renji’s eyes are wide and frenzied, breathing heavy while his heart pounds. “That– I mean, he could have been talking to anybody. It’s not necessarily about us, that was just a mistake.”

“It’s me.” Izuru takes his hands away from the others to squeeze his fingers in his fist. His expression is pallid and grave. “I’m the Devil.”

“Shut up! Just… shut up!” Renji puts his hands to his temples, fingers like claws running through his hair. “You’re not the worst one here!”

“That’s how it is though, isn’t it? The Devil picks the weakest one, the one that’s easiest to drag down.” Izuru argues. He stares coldly at his own hands like he is blaming them. “It has to be me, but it’s… it’s okay, I’m not gonna die or anything.”

“It’s not you and you know it! Don’t try to sacrifice yourself to make me feel better, it’s just makes this even shittier.”

“Both of you shut the fuck up!” Shuuhei turns to snap at them the same time that his finger slips over the dial, turning it to a channel unknown. The tuneless humming of the static disappears. A voice comes over as smooth and clear and close as if it were from a mouth whispering so softly into their ears.

“Oh. Hi there.” Says the Devil. Shuuhei, Izuru and Renji’s eyes are glued to the radios with horror and fascination. It’s impossible to find the Devil’s channel on purpose. It’s always different, you usually only hear snippets of it when you’re changing the channel, almost too quick to hear anything of substance.

“My darlings. My beautiful, shining stars. I have missed you so, so much, my dears. I always miss you. I still remember what your faces were like, your songs that you sang for me.”

I have been longing for them since the days before you were born. Your True Shapes.”

None of them can turn it off, not even Shuuhei who has his finger over the button.

The Devil’s voice is so, so achingly lovely. Soft, sweet, like warm spring and cold water. Angelic fire. Unholy ocean.

Shuuhei feels a stinging behind his eyes, and does not immediately realize that it is from the hot tears gathering at the corners of his lashes and dripping down his cheek. Renji’s heart falls and he knows suddenly how it is possible to fall in love with somebody just by hearing their voice. Izuru feels a warmth tingling his fingers like he is holding hands with someone who doesn’t exist, the heat blossoms and blooms all over his body and under his skin.

“Please come back. I know you deserve so much more than I can give you. My world is dangerous. My gifts for you are fragile and weak.

And I cannot even save you from your pain in this world.”

The voice breaks. It sounds like it is crying.

“But please come back. It kills me me to see you like this, doubting yourselves. Hating your bodies and your hearts. Forced to endure so much more than you could ever deserve. My beautiful loves, I can’t even protect you.

But I swear this to you, there is room for all of you in my world, It doesn’t matter what shape, what soul, what heart. There is room for three of you in mine, and two in His.”

The voice is gone. No announcement, no static. Just dead air. They all hold their breath until Shuuhei pushes oxygen into his chest, finally switching the radio off and killing the glowing red light that swells around it.

We know the Devil.

“That’s not like I was expecting at all.” Izuru says first. He doesn’t sound scared or confused or anything. Just. Flat. Thinking. Stating a fact. “Wasn’t he supposed to be scary?”

Renji stares at his hands in his lap, clutching his knees. His dark eyes are frightened, paralyzed pinpricks. “God was right. God, the counselors, the captain– they were all right. The whole time, in every way, we were the worst people ever. We were the worst and now we’re fucked.”

“I turned the radio to the wrong frequency. It’s my fault.” Shuuhei says, his voice sounds heavy. “Sorry, guys.”

“They will never, ever forgive us for this.” Renji says. He interlocks his fingers and holds them over this mouth, looking more young and vulnerable than either Izuru or Shuuhei can ever recall seeing him before.

“They’re coming right now.” Izuru looks out the smudged, cracked window of the cabin into the woods. He feels the brush of phantom kisses against his face from two boys. “We did something bad, and now they’re coming to punish us.”

Sure enough, the sirens begin to hiss and pop and wail. First quietly then louder, louder. Between the dark shadows of the trees, white lights blink in and out of vision. The searchlights from the counselors and other campers sweep through the forest.

“They’re coming.”

Shuuhei’s eye narrows at the window, at the lights and the noise. The tear tracks down his face have dried utterly, except for the single stream of blood leaking out the corner of his eye and dribbling down. “They’re going to come after us. They’re gonna hunt us like dogs.”

“Maybe. It’ll be. Okay. They’ll attack us, but that doesn’t mean we’ll die.” Izuru shivers. “That’s what we’ve all been training for– using the heavenly bliss attack. It’ll hurt, but just for a second. Then we’ll wake up and everything will be normal.”

Renji’s voice is hoarse, he chokes. “But they’ll never forget what happened. They’ll know what we are. They’ll hate us forever.”

“…”

“Shuuhei?”

“…”

Shuuhei stands up. He faces the window, his mouth is a grim line. He holds his radio in his white-knuckled fist. “They’re gonna come after us. They’re gonna run up on this cabin, and what the hell for? Just because God told them to? They’re just a bunch of stupid kids like us. We never asked to get caught up in this. Fuck this!”

He takes one stiff step back, Shuuhei reels his arm back launches his radio like David’s sling at Goliath. The window spider-cracks and shatters into a million pieces of broken glass, Renji and Izuru both instinctively flinching away from the high, harsh noise while the radio is lost into the dark underbrush.

“Shuuhei, cut it out!””

Renji reaches out to grab Shuuhei’s arm, yanking him by the wrist, but it doesn’t put the glass back in the window or unpinch Shuuhei’s face from that close-lid, tight-browed, dark expression of rage.

“No, forget this! I’ve had enough of all this bullshit.” Shuuhei tries to shake him off, managing to push Renji back despite the considerable size difference between them. “What is this, even? We spent all night in this stupid, shitty cabin wondering which one of us was the worst one. Which of the three of us was so much more bad, who deserved it the most? None of us actually stopped to think about whether we deserved any of this at all in the first place!”

Izuru wets his lips, his eyes looking dark and wide. “Shuuhei, we didn’t have a choice.”

“No, we didn’t. And you know what? If God doesn’t want me, then I don’t want anything to do with him either. At least the Devil accepted us, and that’s more than anyone else has tried to do. So. Team Devil all the way!”

“Shuuhei, this is serious!”

“If God wants to kill the Devil so bad, he’ll have to come down here and do it himself.”

Izuru’s hands wrap around his arms, holding onto himself. He stares down at the floor, looking both pale and hot at the same time. “You really think the Devil will actually accept us? They always say he lies, but… there’s already no happy end if we just stay here and do nothing.”

“It’s not. Right.” Renji’s hands grasp at air, his voice is a feral hiss between his teeth. “We have to fight it! Just because we’re miserable now doesn’t mean– life is meant to be this way! Going against it is pointless, we have to struggle and suffer…”

“Because they say so, right?” Shuuhei seethes darkly. The blood pooling on his collar dark, perfect red, sparkling like rubdies. “It doesn’t matter what they wanted for us, Renji. The Devil is already here!”

“We know the Devil.” Izuru says softly, almost to himself. “It was us all along, wasn’t it?”

“It isn’t, okay? It’s– It can’t–” Renji turns and kicks one of the speakers, and it crunches under his sneaker. “Dammit! We’re stronger than this! Anybody can beat the Devil if they just try!”

“What’s the point of trying?” Shuuhei asks, and he is as deadly as the day is long. “What are we trying to avoid, really?”

“You know what! Don’t make me say it.”

“You have to say it. You hate this place more than anyone, but you try harder than everyone else, too. Renji, you’re awful. You’re terrible and bad because you work too hard for people who hate you too much, and you hate yourself because you can’t see how good that makes you.”

Shuuhei’s hands are stiff at his side, but Renji staggers like he’s been struck. His eyes crinkle around the corner, wounded, looking determinedly at the corner of the cabin. “That’s not what I’m like. How can you talk like that? Because you’re perfect and naturally good?”

“I’m not perfect! I’m awful, too.” Shuuhei argues, his hands are tight fists. “And I’m sick of pretending to be something i’m not. I’ll prove it and fight God’s army myself! I’ll save all our stupid skins if I have to.”

“You don’t have to fight alone.” Izuru says. His face is tight, anxious but just as determined as Shuuhei. His blue eyes are like fire and ice, the flush of his cheeks two pale roses. “Shuuhei… is right, I think. We found the Devil. And now that we’ve found it, we can’t kill ourselves for them.”

The smallest boy smiles just a little bit, relieved and sad and mad and scared and excited in one half-expression. Izuru’s teeth are white as gravestones behind his lips. “You two are my best friends. I can’t just let them take this away from us. It would kill me.”

“That’s my boy.”

“Izuru, no.”

And suddenly, in that second, they can see the flicker of Izuru. The afterimage of him, just as clearly as the blood rolling down Shuuhei’s face in three distinct rivers. Something claps just behind Izuru’s head, like lightning and thunder. They can see the bones under his skin as white as pearls. They can see the beginning, the roots of his skeletal wings.

“The Devil is here. The Devil is us.”

“Oh my God.” Renji gapes, his face is bloodless.

Shuuhei’s face finally lightens from his grave anger. He looks fascinated and enraptured. Tears of blood fall from both of his eyes. Rather than sticking and drying and gumming to his skin, each red drop looks as smooth as oil. As tiger stripes or shadows. “That’s kick-ass.”

“Shuuhei,” Izuru says, “Your eyes-”

“I know.” He puts his fingers to his face. “It’s really warm. I can feel it inside me. Like, when you get goosebumps and you can kind of feel each cell of your skin. I think it’s growing something, like the things coming out of your arms.”

“It feels good.” Izuru looks down at his hands, at the glowing bones like lanterns showing through paper skin. “Like… a huge relief. A weight that I didn’t know I was carrying. I thought it was going to hurt.”

“They’re so little.” Shuuhei reaches over, and his finger brushes the edge of Izuru’s baby wings. Renji shrinks backwards from the two of them.

“Don’t touch it.” Renji’s voice is odd and weak.

“Does it feel weird like this?” Shuuhei asks. Izuru’s wings are slowly growing longer and longer, the bones leaping gracefully out of his skin.

“No, it doesn’t. You’re going to get them, too, and then you can see for yourself when I touch them.”

“That’s amazing. They’re still growing and growing.” Shuuhei’s bloody face grins as he observes closer, where the bone leaves Izuru’s flesh. “It really is just bone. This is awesome.”

“I can feel your hand through them.” Izuru giggles. “It tickles. Your hand is soft.”

“Stop it.” Renji looks haunted. Looking at the two of them with fear and guilt and regret like poison running through him. “Both of you. Stop it. You guys. You two are the Devil.”

“So are you.” Izuru says. He points towards Renji’s mouth. The redhead puts his fingers to his own lips, looks down at his own hands. Black veins zig-zag like thunderbolts over his skin. Starting from inside his mouth, they spread through and over his body. Renji’s voice feels different in his throat. Somehow both softer and coarser, like he is two people speaking in harmony. Two knots form on Renji’s back underneath his shirt, right in the middle of each shoulder blade. “Oh, Renji. They’re beautiful.”

“We have to stop.” Renji’s eyes are transfixed by the black stripes like slimmering snake scales. “We can stop, right?”

“It doesn’t feel like I’m bleeding. It feels more like there’s this tension coming out of me…”

“We don’t have to do this.” Renji shrinks back wards the corner of the room. He closes his fists in on themselves, over the black swirling, spikey stripes. “This isn’t who I am. I’m not… I’m not weak like this.”

“It isn’t about weak.” Izuru says.

“I don’t care about being weak.” Shuuhei states. “Strong. Weak. I don’t care as long as I’m me.”

Renji squeezes his eyes shut, like that will block out the back bolts on his skin. The white bones coming out of Izuru and the red membranes reaching out from shuuhei’s shoulders. “It’s already hard enough. We get enough shit as it is, just trying to be normal and good. This is just going to hurt more.”

His fingers wrap like claws around his body, Renji holds his chest and stomach in like he can keep the pressure inside from spilling out. “I– I wasn’t born good. I want to fix myself. I want to be something new that isn’t me, that I don’t hate. I want God to make me better.”

“God won’t save us.” Shuuhei’s red wings tenderly reach the air around his head. At the same time, his hand tenderly reaches the air in front of Renji. “You can keep trying to kill yourself, but I’m not just gonna stand here and watch it happen without doing anything about it.”

Renji’s eyes fly open as he feels something touch his hand. And though his first instinct in such a situation is always to swing first and ask questions later, he is stone-still now because that is Izuru’s hand locking their fingers together.

“Renji, you always try to be the strongest. That’s one of the reasons I like you.” Izuru’s voice is like a hymn. It makes Renji feel dizzy. “But we can protect each other. You, me and Shuuhei. We can be weak together and strong together.”

Shuuhei’s hand still searches the air. “If you say that you’re broken, then me and Izuru are broken, too. Do you believe that?”

Honestly, Renji can’t. “Of course not. You two are both the best people I know.” Renji can sit here and count Izuru and Shuuhei’s flaws all day. Everything from the way Shuuhei snores to how he tactlessly volunteers people for things they don’t want to do. From Izuru’s co-dependency to the way he burns marshmallows in the fire and then eats the black, burnt bits off even though he knows that it drives Renji crazy.

Even so, they’re his favorite. They’re wonderful. There’s no better people on Heaven or Earth. “You’re the best i know. And I know that you’re right. I don’t know why my reflex is to be angry at everything, I just can’t stop it. I can’t control it.

I can’t control it.

I can’t control it.

I can’t control it.”

Izuru squeezes Renji’s hand in his. His other hand, he uses to trace the black bolts going up the inside of Renji’s forearms, weaving under his clothes. “Renji, it’s not that I don’t understand your feelings. Years of it, thinking about how ugly I am inside and out. How a boy should be tougher and meaner and better. I hate it.”

Renji’s hand finds Shuuhei’s hand, and it feels as warm as fire. Renji knows in in that moment that he could go back. He could run away and try to drag Izuru and Shuuhei with them, show up on God’s doorstep and make them promise to turn them unbroken.

But Shuuhei will fight him the whole time tooth and nail. And Izuru will try until his last breath to keep Renji away from that place. None of them are sure who would win that battle. The right to live in the bodies they loathe or the right to leave behind the shells. To keep pretending in this world they know or to move to something new and scary, the uncharted territory. The darkest sea.

“We’re not going home, are we?”

“I can’t make you answer. Either of you.” Shuuhei says. “You have to say yes. That you’re going to do this with me. I don’t want to be the one who made that call for all of us.”

Izuru beams serenely. “You don’t want to be responsible for us?”

“No. I want to know we all made our decisions the way we wanted.”

“So you are still responsible for us. You never change.”

There are tear-tracks on Renji’s face as black as midnight. As space. “You guys have to be with me the whole time.”

“We are. We promise.”

“You have to promise that it’s out there. Hell is out that door, and it’s waiting for us to come home. Promise that once we go out there, we can’t go back.” The roots of Renji’s wings begin to reach, black as smoke drifting up and out. His red hair seems to shine, to grow, to search.

Izuru feels lightness and weightlessness and intense gravity. Not about what they are going to do. But the overwhelming feeling of knowing they can decide what that future is, “I’m never going back. Not even if I could choose. I’d go back in time a million times and still end up here, ready to go. If anyone tried to stop me, I’d have to kill them.”

Shuuhei’s blood is singing. “I don’t ever want to be human again. I don’t want their bodies or their rules. So I’ll promise you that I won’t pretend to be perfect. I won’t keep things bottled up or treat you like you’re little kids who can’t see me fail.”

“I promise,” Izuru says. “I won’t put you guys on pedestals. I’ll stop thinking you’re so much cooler than me if you promise not to always be angry. If you swear you will stop shutting things away, I’ll heal your wounds every time. And if you try to push me away, I’ll make you let me.”

“This is intense. I’m excited.” Renji runs his eye with his heel, and he giggles a little. “Wow.”

“I’m not joking.”

The sirens stop.

 

* * *

 

This is a love story. Like kisses falling from soft and tender lips, so too does skin unravel. Tissues, fat, the uncomfortable weight is unburdened in exchange for a new weightlessness. Like first kisses. Second kisses. Thirds.

Changing, evolving. Shuuhei, Renji and Izuru hold on to each other through the sequence. Izuru’s wings spread over them, the white fingers glittering like jewels. Shuuhei’s red wings drip their precious ruby red to cradle the three of them. Renji’s black wings rise like smoke and cover them in their shield.

They hold each other. Despite his earlier doubts, reservations, Renji’s body comes apart with ease. The black ribbons are ready to be let out. They reach through the shadows of the woods, touching everything with renewed splendor. All through the forest, every living creature can hear him. A whisper, a roar, a prayer, a lovesong.

Shuuhei is the flood, the hot rush. The life-bringing fire. His blood drains from his body and becomes energy to fuel them. It burns away into steam and fog. His bones snap in a clap of thunder. He smells like summer lightning. A storm is coming.

Izuru is so patient with them, helping them out of their bodies. He heals them when it gets hard. His bones become bigger than his body. The earth swells around him and sighs. He is the tremor, the quake, the solid ground beneath them and around them. His hands tremble, too many of them to count. Enough to hold Renji and Shuuhei a hundred times over. To hold and pet and caress.

The Devil isn’t lonely anymore. They have each other now. They wanted to be let out, and they let themselves out.

The rest of the kids keep coming, with their radios and with god on their heels. They want undo what has been done. They want to roll back time, but they won’t. They can’t. They can’t even lay a finger on them.

But they can try their damnedest. The Three will be waiting for them.

 

* * *

 

Dawn breaks. Camp is nicer now, after the changes. It was too small and too old. They built it up nicely.

No more stories. Renji drowned out the sound of them with his singing. It’s much more beautiful, his voice reaches the corners where the shadows stretch. It guides home the lost. It finds the crevices where lies try to hide.

Izuru builds the new cabins out of hardy stone and rich soil. The other campers like them much better this way, helping to build them. They help with the construction, it turns out they were also tired of their bodies.

Shuuhei brings in the dark clouds above. He falls from the sky and bathes the camp in summer’s warm shower. He flows into the lake and stretches out, reveling in the great space. Bringing Izuru and Renji in too when he gets tired of it.

At a glance, nothing is wrong with the woods. Eventually, someone will notice. Will want to ruin the quiet that the three of them have made. The thought of this excites them.

The Three of them hope their enemies send more kids. The good ones, the bad ones. The rejects and the outcasts and the worst children.

They’ll like it here, too.

This is the new Revelations. The end of the Old World. The safest place. This is Hell on Earth. And everyone on the planet is invited.


End file.
